I. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to improvements in reciprocating piston engines. In particular, it relates to improvements in that portion of a reciprocating piston engine wherein power is delivered by the piston, or pistons, to the main drive shaft. The invention also relates to an improved metering device for the introduction of air, or a mixture of fuel and air into the engine.
II. Background and Prior Art
Reciprocating piston engines have been known for many years. In internal comubstion engines, a type of reciprocating piston engine which has become widely available for both stationary and automotive uses, at least one and almost invariably a plurality of pistons are individually, reciprocably mounted within cylinders. A piston is constituted of a piston head, the crown or closed side of which faces the combustion chamber, or portion of a cylinder to which a charge of a combustible mixture, or fuel, can be admitted via a fuel injector or a carburator fed intake valve. The volume of the cylinder is varied by movement of the piston, the volume of the cylinder above the crown head of the piston expanding during the intake stroke, or piston outstroke, and decreasing during a piston exhaust stroke. The opposite side of a piston head is pivotally attached to an end of a piston shaft while the opposite end of a piston shaft is in turn operatively engaged to a crankshaft. A combustible mixture of fuel and air are fed into the closed end of a cylinder via a fuel intake valve, ignited, and burned such that the burning, expanding gases exert force against the crown side of a piston head in a power stroke, or piston outstroke to push, and move a piston within a cylinder, applying a torque to the crankshaft to perform useful work. Certain operating fundamentals are common to all internal combustion engines of the reciprocating piston type.
In the operation of an internal combustion engine an operating cycle or series of events are carried out in succession, over and over again, to make the engine run, or perform. Two-stroke and four-stroke engines are well known, the four-stroke engine being the most common. Considering, e.g., a single cycle of operation, with respect to a given cylinder of an operation of a four-stroke engine, there is included: (1) a fuel intake stroke produced by suction of fuel through an open intake valve into a closed cylinder during an outstroke of a piston, (2) a compression stroke produced by compression of the fuel attained by the instroke of a piston, (3) a power stroke attained by spark or self-ignition of the fuel charge sucked or injected into a cylinder, expansion of the burning gas pressing against the crown side of a piston head, and (4) an exhaust stroke attained by exhaust of the gases from the closed cylinder during the next instroke of a piston. These cycles are repeated ad infinitum, each cycle (i.e., intake, compression, power and exhaust stroke) producing two revolutions of the crankshaft.
The compression and power strokes are the basic and necessary strokes of the cycle of operation of any reciprocating piston internal combustion engine. The fuel intake and exhaust strokes are eliminated in the two-stroke cycle engine by compressing the fresh fuel charge slightly outside the cylinders so that the fuel charge wil flow into the cylinders through ports which are uncovered as the piston approaches the end of the power stroke. Exhaust gases are pushed out through a second set of ports in the cylinder in a scavenging step by the incoming fuel charge. It would be expected that the two-stroke cycle would provide twice as much power from an engine of given size at a given operating speed. Not so, however: the two-stroke cycle is less efficient than the four-stroke cycle because the four-stroke cycle provides more positive scavenging and charging of the cylinders with less loss of fuel charge to the exhaust. The two-stroke cycle, however, is somewhat more efficient in a self-ignition engine than in a spark-ignition engine because air alone is used in a self-ignition engine in scavenging the cylinders with no loss of fuel in the process.
Despite the wide availability and use of the internal combustion engine, in any event, such engines are notoriously fuel inefficient. The gasoline engine attains an efficiency of about fifteen to twenty-two percent, based on the theoretical useful energy available in a given weight, or volume of fuel. The diesel engine, one of the world's most efficient power sources, converts more of the energy contained in a given quantity of fuel into useful energy than any other power-developing engine. The future of the diesel engine thus appears assured because of its higher efficiency over an entire range of speed and load. Yet, the diesel engine is generally no more than about twenty-five to twenty-seven percent more efficient than a gasoline engine.
There presently exists a profound need for more fuel efficient reciprocating piston engines, especially internal combustion engines of the reciprocating piston type.
III. Objects
It is, accordingly, a primary objective of the present invention to supply such need.
It is, in particular, an object to provide a novel more fuel efficient reciprocating piston engine suitable for both stationary and non-stationary uses, inclusive especially of self-ignited and spark-ignited internal combustion engines for railroad, marine and automotive uses, commercial and military.
A further, and more specific object is to provide a novel, more efficient clean exhaust emission engine of the internal combustion, reciprocating piston type.
IV. The Invention
These objects and others are achieved in accordance with this invention which embodies, principally, improvements in that portion of a reciprocating piston engine wherein power is delivered by a piston, or pistons, to the main drive shaft. It also relates to improvements in a volume metering device, or camshaft intake valve activated sub-assembly for the introduction of air, or a mixture of fuel and air into such engines.
In general, the improved power transmission embodies, in assembly with reciprocating piston engines such as described, an improved combination comprising a roller gear pinion operatively engaged with a drive shaft, and an elongated roller gear operatively engaged to said roller gear pinion and to a piston of the reciprocating piston engine. One end of the elongated roller gear is pivotally connected to a piston of a cylinder-piston unit, opposite its crown side, while the other end thereof is engaged or meshed with said roller gear pinion. Reciprocation of the piston within its cylinder will produce rotation of the drive shaft due to the aplication of force by the piston actuated elongated roller gear upon said roller gear pinion.
In its preferred form the roller gear pinion is concentrically mounted upon the drive shaft, and the elongated roller gear is in operative engagement with the roller gear pinion and piston. One end of the elongated roller gear is open centered, forms an elongated circle, and the inside faces thereof are provided with teeth for continuous meshing engagement with the teeth of the roller gear pinion. The elongated roller gear is also provided with a roller face, or faces, which contact, and remain in constant contact with a roller face, or faces, located on the roller gear pinion. Guide bar roller shafts are mounted on the engine near the drive shaft. The guide bar roller shafts are spaced apart, in-line one with another, and mounted in bearings in generally parallel orientation with the drive shaft, one each on alternately disposed sides of a roller gear pinion, and elongated roller gear. Guide bars, one each of which is mounted on an elongated roller gear on a side thereof faced toward said guide bar roller shafts, are engagable with an alternately disposed pair of said guide bar roller shafts. On the outstroke of a piston, as occurs during a fuel intake stroke or a power stroke, a guide bar will move between one of said pairs of guide bar roller shafts to create and maintain continuous contact between the teeth and rollers in a face of an elongated roller gear, and consequent continuous meshing and rolling engagement with the teeth and rollers on the face of a roller gear pinion, and on a piston instroke the guide bar will ride around to the opposite side of said pair of guide bar roller shafts to guide the elongated roller gear through a path which causes the continued meshing and rolling engagement between the teeth and rollers of the elongated roller gear and the teeth and rollers of the roller gear pinion to rotate the drive shaft.
The engine also includes a novel cam-camshaft activated intake valve sub-assembly which can be set to control, or regulate, the amount of air, or mixture of fuel and air taken into an engine during the intake stroke.
These and other features of these novel combinations in their preferred form, as well as the principle of their operation will be better understood by reference to the following drawing and detailed description which makes direct reference to this drawing. In the drawing, similar numbers are used in the different figures to represent similar parts and components, and subscripts are used with a given whole number to designate a plurality of analogous parts or components. Where subscripts are employed, and subsequent reference is made to the part or component by number without use of the subscripts, the designation is intended in a generic sense.